Down We All Fall
by theryn
Summary: One death leads to another, and then another. . .Is someone controlling this or is it just fate? Sad story. . .Rated M to be safe. Very mild OOC.


**A/N: Hey, um. . .Please don't kill me :D I'm sorry for not updating my other story. . .OKAY, I KNOW, I SUCK. BUT. . .BUT. . .I just lost interest in it. . .so it's going to be on a permanent hiatus until further notice, dears. Please don't kill me, I love you all! Please enjoy my new story, and don't hate me too much.**

**Oh, also, this story is going to be very. . .strange. This chapter is in second person, and I think you can tell who it is. The next chapter will be third person, and I may do first person later on, even though it's my weakest one. Sorry in advance if this confuses you, but I just want to see if my writing skills are up to par and I also want to test out a theory of mine. This story is also going to be very sad. I usually write very dark, sad things, and this is no different. I want to write a sickly sweet one next. Bear with me on this roller coaster, children! C: **

**~Corn E. **

Run. Run faster. Run harder. Don't stop. You'll die. You'll be caught, crushed, and killed. You won't see your family again, you won't see daylight again, you won't see anything again. You will be dead, and when you're dead, you're dead. Obviously. There's no way to stop it, to fix it, to reverse it. That's why you have to keep running. Ignore the pain in your legs. Ignore the fact that you're slowing down. Ignore the fact that, deep down, you know you can't escape. Ignore it all and keep trying.

If you stop now, just roll over and give up, Arthur won't forgive you. Francis, maybe, and Mattie, maybe. But Arthur? Forget about it. He'll blame you for letting yourself get caught. Blame you, then blame himself, then blame you some more. You know that the only reason you're still going is the thought of your family.

Even though you know all this, and more, you can't control the growing weakness in your legs. Man, you really should have hit the gym more often. Maybe lightened up on your daily dose of burgers. But you continue. You reach very, very deep down and pull up the will to keep going. You're breathing is heavy and ragged, and you're starting to see black spots every time your feet touch the ground. Your baggy jeans aren't really helping you in this sudden marathon, but since it's so cold, your hoodie does.

You think that the scenery is too pretty for such horrible feelings. Lights and Christmas ornaments are hanging from the green lamp posts that had turned on automatically hours ago, even though Christmas was still 28 days away. Snow was due to fall in three days, which was always a sight to see in this city. Tree leaves were mostly gone, chased away by Winter, making the trees look naked and dark.

You haven't run this much since Arthur had his first heart attack. Damn, that was one scary day. You were sitting with him in his living room, attempting to eat what he called "food", when suddenly he fell over screaming of excruciating pain. You took his small body in your arms and ran all six miles to the nearest hospital, waited almost all night for the doctor's word, and finally saw him nearly 10 excruciatingly long hours later. He was going to be fine, but the experience scared you more than when Mattie told you his secret. Much more. You held his hand the entire time he stayed in the hospital, leaving only to use the bathroom and to eat and drink what little you did.

While you were lost in your thoughts, you failed to notice that the figure dressed in dark clothing that you were running from was getting increasingly closer. Too close to escape from when you finally noticed. The (you figured it was a dude) man had a sudden burst of speed which allowed him to catch up with you. You yelped and jumped away from the hand he swung at you, just barely missing it. You celebrated your small victory, but it was short-lived as you, stupidly, tripped over your own feet and fell to the cold ground. One mistake that cost you your life.

While you were down, the man whose name you did not know kicked you in the side with as much force as he could muster, sending the first colossal amount of pain through your body. More kicks and then punches were thrown, some with precision, some blindly. All of them hurt. Your mind raced, despite your current situation, wondering why this horrible man chose you to inflict this awfulness on to. Was it your hair? Your clothes? The way you spoke? It didn't exactly matter, because you were almost positive you had never seen someone this big up close, but you wanted to know the man's reason for doing this.

As he punched your face, you realized two things. One, he had pulled you up by your jacket and were standing in a slumped position against a chipping red brick wall, and, two, you had started bleeding from your split forehead in a gushing little river. You read somewhere that head wounds bled more than wounds on other parts of your body, so the amount leaving the gash didn't startle you at first. The red liquid ran down your face, getting in your eyes. It burned. The burning was still nothing compared to the pain of what the man was about to do. You would take a gallon of blood being poured into your eyes over it.

The guy pulled out a shiny, new-looking knife, obviously sharp by the way it glinted in the dim light coming from the street lamps. Your mind suddenly went blank, as you knew what was about to happen, and you tried to prepare yourself. You could have had days to try and prepare yourself, but it wouldn't have mattered. The pain was unbelievable. The man took the knife in both of his huge, gloved hands and drove it through your unprotected chest. He used so much force that the knife went all the way through, hitting the wall behind you with a sickening clank. Another chip out of the wall. The pain washed through like a wave, and it seemed to take every cell in your body and rip it in half. No human should have been forced to endure that level of pain. It was more than you could handle, but you tried to remain upright. You didn't stay up for long, because the man pushed you down again as you tried to breathe with quick intakes. It was useless, seeing as how each breath felt like you were breathing in nails.

As if that wasn't enough, the man took out a handgun. Normally, you would have been able to tell what kind it was because of your mild obsession with guns, but pain was dominating your mind at the time. With three shots, the guy pierced holes in your right leg, your stomach, and your left shoulder. Surprisingly, even more pain was added to the list with each bullet. You didn't think it was possible to be in this much agony.

The man, deciding his job was done, pocketed his gun, turned on his heel, and started to walk away. You thought you heard a snicker, but you couldn't be sure. You wanted to yell out, to call him every name you could possibly think of and you wanted him to feel the pain you felt and more. You couldn't, for obvious reasons, and settled for fuming in your mind. You didn't understand why this man had done this to you. You didn't deserve this! You still wanted to go skiing with Mattie in Canada, and you wanted to taste different wines with Francis in France, and you wanted to talk to Kiku about the new video game coming out soon. Most of all, you wanted to tell Arthur how you felt. You knew you should have told him, and now you'd never be able to. . .You knew you were going to die. It was a nagging feeling in the back of your mind. You decided to stop being negative, considering these very well could be your last moments of life. Never mind that they were spent writhing in pain. You might as well spend your last minutes trying to forget about the pain and trying to remember all the good times you had.  
You know that they say your life flashes before your eyes when you believe you are about to die, and 'they' are partly true. You think about your life, the people you met, the shit you went through, the decisions you made. You think that you did a pretty good job, and though you wish so desperately you didn't have to die, you know that you are pleased with the life you lead until now.

Thinking about these things has made you start to cry. Or maybe it was the wounds. You don't really know and don't really care. You can feel life slipping out of your grasp. You try, you try so hard, to hold on. Maybe, just maybe, you can hold on until help arrives, and you can live from this. Maybe one day this will just be a story told to explain scars. You wish so hard for that to be true, but, yet again, you know, deep down, that will not happen. The damage inflicted on your body (and mind, for that matter) is too great and you're losing too much blood.

With your final, agonizing breaths, you pull all the faces of the people you love and the people that have impacted your life into your mind. You look at them behind your closed lids, and say goodbye to each one. As you open your eyes once more, you look into the sky for the last time and examine the beauty and the nobleness of the stars. They seem to welcome you with open arms. Snow three days early starts to fall and it looks like a scene out of a movie.

Eyes sliding closed again, you utter your final words into the black night with no one to hear them but yourself.  
"Goodbye, and. . .I Love you. . ." The sigh of a last breath leaves you and you never open your mouth again.


End file.
